Monday, October 28, 2013

Pumpkin Math!

We carved a pumpkin in class today! First we talked about the size of our pumpkin- was it small, medium or large? LARGE! Then we weighed it on the scale- 12 pounds exactly. Some of us thought that sounded heavy, and some of us thought that must be light, so we all held it for a few seconds to help us decide. We also measured the height of our pumpkin with a ruler- 13 inches high.

After all that measuring, Ms. Heather cut the top off and we started to clean out the inside. Ooey gooey!
After scooping everything out, we weighed the pumpkin again and it was only 10 pounds now, so it had gotten lighter.




Some of us wanted square eyes, others wanted round, so Ms. Heather tried to do both with square on the outside and a circle inside each eye. We agreed on a triangle nose and some fangs. Boo!

Then, it was time for the really hard work-> counting ALL the seeds! Everyone lined up by Mrs. Horton, popped a seed onto our 100 counting mat, then went around to the back of the line. After several laps around the table, we were getting tired, but still had a lot of seeds left!




We all took a seat, and watched Mrs. Horton keep on counting! We filled up one mat, then TWO, and then THREE mats. We finally ran out of seeds at 336- WHEW!!


We ended our day with some yummy witch finger snacks and toasted pumpkin seeds. 
Halloween is almost here!



Bats and Owls

We've been doing lots of spooky learning over the past few days! Our nighttime animal projects have been lots of fun-> our room and hall are now decorated with bats and owls. We also worked on the letter Oo, practiced counting with some dice and paint dotters on our bat picture mats, and made yummy owl snacks with candy corn, sun butter, marshmallows and graham crackers.
Using magnifiers, scales and color changers to explore fall nature

Fall is in the hall!







 We read about nocturnal animals in The Best Nest . Then we made torn paper bird nests with baby owlets.






Thursday, October 24, 2013

A Visit with Our Favorite Vet!

We had 3 special visitors come to class on Wednesday! Dr. Mahany, vet tech Brittany and Bryn the dog came over from Islands Vet Clinic to tell us about a dog check up with the vet. Dr. Mahany told us all about dogs, how to approach them, and lots of other fun facts about being a vet. Then he took us through Bryn's annual checkup, step by step. He says he always starts at the tip of the nose, and works all the back to the tail. Nose, teeth, gums, eyes, ears, belly, back and rear end all get looked at very carefully! We got to see his special tools for looking in ears and noses, his stethoscope for listening to heartbeats, and even got to watch him give Bryn her shots. She didn't even move or act like it hurt at all! Then everyone got a chance to listen to Bryn's heartbeat (she was very patient with us :) ).

Thank you so much to all three of our guests for taking the time to come share with us!

















Sunday, October 20, 2013

Our Pet Rocks

We created our own pets this week- Pet Rocks! On Monday, we chose the perfect rock for our new little buddy. After some warming time in the toaster oven, we put got started adding some color with crayons. The hot rocks melted the crayons as we worked, making for a wonderfully smooth sliding way to color/paint. Notice our handy sock hands- the socks protected our hands from the hot rocks while we worked!


On Tuesday, we sat down with our cool colored rocks and added some details with foam, feathers, yarn and wiggly eyes. Our pet personalities are coming out!



On Wednesday and Thursday, we named our pet rocks and dictated why our rocks were so special. Ms. Heather wrote it all down for our newest class book. Mrs. Horton took our pictures with our new friends, and they are now ready to come home!